Train more abortion nurses says top doctor

MORE nurses and midwives should be trained to offer women abortion pills, according to a leading doctor.

Professor Lesley Regan, head of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, wants terminations to be available to women more readily.

Nurses and midwives can already hand out the tablets, which induce an abortion, but only after two doctors have signed their consent. Professor Regan wants to relax the laws so only one doctor needs to provide their consent, while also training more nurses and midwives in abortion care.

She said women’s access to abortions was at ‘crisis point’, due to a shortage of trained doctors and nurses and holdups in forms being signed.

‘There are a lot of women now who are finding that there are big barriers to them accessing [a] swift response to their request [for an early abortion],’ she told The Guardian.

Last month the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists voted to back the decriminalisation of abortions and lobby the Government for a change in the law.

Professor Regan said they should be treated no differently from any other medical procedure – including removal of bunions – which only require one doctor’s signature beforehand.

Pro-life campaigner Dr Anthony McCarthy, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, fears the new measures will ‘trivialise’ abortions and make them instantly available.